At last: Jack B Yeats returns to the auction block with $1m price tag

It was last seen on the market 67 years ago, since when prices for one of Ireland's most beloved artists have taken a significant leap forward.

Jack B Yeats' 1925 oil work A Fair Day, Mayo has a high-end estimate of $1m ahead of its sale at Adam's Fine Art Auctioneers' Irish art auction in Dublin on September 28.

"The picture was sold through Leo Smith in Dublin in October 1944 for the then huge price of £250 to Mr JP Reihill Senior," Adam's managing director, James O'Halloran, told the Irish Independent newspaper.

"The painting has been in the Reihill family ever since."

The depiction of a busy country market town is notable for its street level perspective and claustrophobic nature.

Before it came to reside with the Reihill family the painting had already enjoyed a notable existence, which could well boost its price at the auction block.

A fair old price: Yeats’s work has a $1m estimate

Yeats donated the painting to Eamon de Valera, the first leader of the Fianna Fail political party, who hung it on his office wall.